


You Are Hank.

by PansexualDonnaNoble



Series: You. [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Car Accidents, Character Study, Gen, Give him one, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, Second Person, Sort Of, Trans Hank Anderson, hank centric, hank doesn't have much of a backstory so i figured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:29:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23919067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PansexualDonnaNoble/pseuds/PansexualDonnaNoble
Summary: These are the facts as you know them. And as they are being presented to you.Your car is totaled. You've had it since you were sixteen. You're bleeding from a gash in your temple. You have just survived a major car accident. At least you have good insurance. You forgot to phone your wife. And your son is dead.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor, Hank Anderson/Hank Anderson's Wife, Hank Anderson/Original Female Character(s)
Series: You. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1724083
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	You Are Hank.

You come into this world as the beginning of another generation. The first of three. A test run of numerical data and _firsts;_ promising and spinning maddeningly; perturbed, on an oversized; creaking hamster wheel.

Ironically; you will soon discover the truth that you are _allergic to them._ When you beg your mother dry for one until she relents - if to just get you to leave her to _herself._ And you spend all your own money on cages and food. Simply to wake up in the midst of a nap, to rashes and itching skin. Without a noise or word for this; you think you are dying. You can't die yet; the neighbor next door still owes you $10.54. You haven't fed the family dog yet. _You are eight years old starting in two weeks._

But this is the future; _no one can know the future._ If you did or could you might crawl back into your mother's rotting, opened, vagina and hand the reins over to another eager sperm. You would miss many things. Bad and good. _You will not exist._ But it will be the closest you can ever possibly feel or get to each other. You could reach something religious this way. A mother's love could be religious - _but you are not religious._ Neither is she.

No one knows the future. Especially not the newborn infant _screeching_ absolution, indifference, and the blind, exhausted, hope of heaven into existence in a nearby hospital wing as men and women in blue scrubs scramble to make space for you; _Cheers_ reruns blend in from the televison on the wall, perfectly with the agonized screams of your mother alone to partake in some horrid little symphony. Through her cries, she manages pained laughter.

Unlike technological advancements that you will never imagine could be possible; you are drenched in crimson. You have been born; or you are currently being born. You won't stop crying regardless. Blood threatens to climb out of your throat with its claws.

You are the deciding factor on whether or not the name you have now been brought into should even bother being continued. If your crude, whining, screams should be endured more than once. And again. If a pain _like this_ should have to be known again. If you can stomach it, you can also be the thing that ties your mother and father together. You must know the ropes of this - they don't.

No pressure.

You come into this world at the height of the AIDS epidemic; born at the exact minute someone undeserving dies from a government's abhorrent apathy. _Cheers_ is on TV, so are _The Golden Girls,_ and _Growing Pains._ And your blanket is inexplicably pink, when it should be blue. Someone must have made a mistake; Maybe if you cry harder, someone will be alerted to the slip up.

You are Hank Anderson. You are crying louder than is decent behavior because you think someone should know about this mistake. But you aren't now. Your name is not something that feels like a word. But it's being written on the certificate with confidence. If you climb back into the womb maybe _you'll come out again right._

But you don't. Because you are an infant. You don't know anything. You already have enough to deal with. _You are first born._ So it goes on being written. And you continue on crying. And your mother's holding your bloodied little body, your soaked fingers. Her attention is divided between Cheers and you. But not equally.

Your father forgot to come. So for the first three hours of your life, you don't think fathers exist. For the fourth hour; you are surprised to find out you are wrong.

You are Hank Anderson. You have just been born - the wrong way. You have just discovered you have a father. Cheers keeps playing undisturbed on the televison.

This is will be the only easy part.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

 _You are not a breeze._ You try to be. You try harder than you have ever tried. _You want to make your mother smile._

By five years old you are the oldest child; you have torn apart every dress they have given you; until your sister is born, and then the ones undestroyed, you give to her. Since you have been able to first express yourself; you have tried to inform people of the mistake.

People don't like to have others find out about their mistakes. You are a tomboy. A delightful little firecracker. They give you this explanation. You think it makes sense; you want it to make sense. It would make the migraines you give your parents stop. On the surface; you accept this - and avoid the subject for a long while. _You are a good child._

Under the surface; you will know nothing but resentment, confusion.

And longing that is more tender than anything you will be faced with. You hold onto the longing because you are or you want to be drowning in the tenderness. You want this tenderness to swallow you whole, until you are sleeping in its belly, with the right looks and an acceptance. It's godless, caring, and you ache because of it. It stumbles into you, brushing against your shoulder and you melt from it. You _owe it everything._

When you are eight; you ask your mother for a hamster. In a rare moment of bonding; she takes you and your newborn sisters to the pet store; she takes the four of you out to eat after. _It's a calm you feel sick and out of place from._ You see a policeman on the way out; and in a moment of awe struck childish wonder, decide you could be like him.

You name the hamster Alf. The hamster nearly kills you. _You decide you are more of a dog person anyways._ It's the first time you ever see your mother concerned. You decide to die with the only thing you ever wanted under your belt. You don't though. _No one really talks about it again._

You are older now; thirteen, and have more people around you; some born into, and some you have found in your short lifespan.

You know your mother; you miss how close you two were in the womb. You don't know what made her want to have you; _maybe it was an accident._ She's got a wonderful smile; a radiating laugh. _Never towards you._ It's nothing personal; it's not you, or what you can't be. _She's like that with each of you._

You know your sisters; twins, eight years younger than you. They're not yet people you can form a solid opinion of; in the future they're reckless, the talk of the town; bright - everything you couldn't be - _but you do not know the future._

You know your father. He smells of cigarettes, after shave, and whiskey and watches reruns of sitcoms. He's stocky; hairy, you steal his cigarettes and whiskey from time to time when he isn't looking and he still finds out anyway. You have a feeling that if you were born the right way, he would have punched you for it.

But because, by the fault of a doctor's writing, you have not been born the right way - he doesn't. _Apparently he was raised right and doesn't hit people like you._ He takes both from you and smiles every time; in the way tigers must do before they shred a zebra's throat to shreds. Like he's telling you the abuse he throws to you is a blessing in disguise.

It isn't until he catches you changing out of the dubious binder you made from toliet paper does he decide something else.

_But you do not know the future._

He has a drinking problem. His father has a drinking problem. You feel like this knowledge is a warning.

You know your next door neighbor; Daphne. You watch terrible action movies and shoot at bottles in the woods with her and your BB gun. She's the only person you ever told about the mistake since you were six. And the only one to have listened.

She's older than you by one year, with frizzy, badly dyed green curls. And her makeup never looks right, and her eyes are oddly close together. She's the one who came up with the toilet paper idea and helped you wrap it around your chest. You aren't the most friendly, or eloquent with words, you swear more than a sailor, and she's the only friend in the neighborhood who can stand you.

But she isn't very good either. _You feel like you owe her everything for being like you._

You are Hank Anderson. You come up with it one late night sleeping over at Daphne's. Alf is on the TV, a faint buzzing from the air conditioner, her parents are nice; put together, and do not yell. _They feel like a dream._ You wake up Daphne and share this news.

You are Hank Anderson. No one can take this from you. She promises to kick whoever tries to in the balls. You tell her whoever does, you get to do it first.

You feel like a frog has invaded your innards. Hoping around inside you.

You are Hank. You feel like you owe the frizzy green haired girl everything.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You move through teenage rebellion with sharp, jagged, teeth, and promises to yourself that you do not plan on revealing to anyone else.

The girl with the green frizzy hair and eyes that are too close together moves sometime after your fourteenth birthday. She climbs through your window in the night before to say goodbye to you. You had spent the night staying up to watch old shitty horror movies, in some bizarre attempt at feeling her with you, and you nearly have an accident from her knocking on your window; thinking Micheal Myers has come out of your tapes to kill you.

She tells you the news on the edge of your bed as you stand in the corner of your room with your hands neatly in your pockets. Not to a different part of Michigan, not just out of Detroit. _Out of the country._ Forever.

It is the worst news you have ever heard. But give it time. _You will hear worse._ You try not to wake your parents as you argue in hushed voices, and held back tears; _why didn't she tell you sooner?_ and _what are you supposed to do without her?_ As some final girl makes sure she's killed Micheal Myers for real this time. _She hasn't._ But you have bigger fish to fry.

Somewhere in all of it. She kisses you goodbye.

You wish she had just left without saying anything. This feels like a betrayal. But she hasn't betrayed you; and you've wanted this, you always thought she was pretty - you thought she was _a dream_ actually. A dream or a god or both.

You break apart by your own doing; the tenderness you never thought you'd feel from another person is gone. Your voice is low and your tears are glistening in the dark illuminated by the TV light. You push her back and stare at her like she's just told you she has cancer, or you have cancer, or you both have cancer and you both have knives sticking out of you. Every problem at once it seems.

 _Why now?_ Your voice is accusing, upset, and filled with longing. _Why the fuck would you do this now?_

She tells you she loves you; and you tell her _now is not the time._

She climbs out of your window in tears. You take off your makeshift binder, and turn off the movie, balling your fists up and shouting every swear you know into the pillow. You close your window and see her run back to her side of the fence separating you two. _You never see her again._ What you have to remember her by is the toilet paper binder, and your name.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You are Hank Anderson. Today you are sixteen. No one remembers this. But you are sixteen.

Your mother doesn't; but she has been dead for a year; so you find space to understand.

Your sisters do not. You try to take it easy; and not to heart. Your father doesn't; you didn't expect him to.

You realize you find parenthood overated. Or impossible; or coherent, delicate ones a myth. You take the day off from school without telling anyone; considering it your unspoken birthday gift.

Instead you go with a girl from your geometry class that you are failing; a bottle blonde with several piercings, a chronic watermelon gum addiction, a leather jacket that crinkles rudely when she walks, and an attitude of indifference. She chews loudly, and without apology.

 _She is like you._ You have never seen anyone like you before. You don't think she has seen anyone like her before either. Besides Daphne, she is one of the only people to have ever called you Hank. You think she is failing geometry too.

You drink vodka she keeps in her flask with her underneath the bridge. She doesn't acknowledge anything you say apart from a grunt, and you cling to the flask everytime she offers it. It doesn't even taste good. She offers you harder things, but you refuse. And she takes you to the concert of a metal band named Knights of The Black Death. _It's not a very good name._ If someone asked you. But no one does.

It's loud; louder than anything you have ever heard; louder than your father, louder than the mistake. You've lost the girl with the piercings and attitude, getting caught in the bodies of people smashing themselves together. You try to keep up; but after several minutes you feel yourself drowning in them.

You swim through the sea of bodies, the smell of sweat and smoke is nauseating. The bathrooms aren't gendered; they barely even have a door. But you push them open anyways. There's an unconscious man on the dirty floor, still breathing but covered accidentally by his own vomit. He smells like Whiskey. Near him is a shard of glass, from one of the shattered mirrors.

You stare at yourself in one of them. _Is that you?_ Why are you so tense? Christ is that really _you?_ Are you Hank? You aren't superfical, and you don't even realize you've picked up the glass and started chipping away at your hair until it's in the sink. You slice it away inch by inch until it's as short as you can make it.

Well, it is you. And that's your hair in the sink. And someone unconscious on the ground. And the screaming of the lead singer outside. _How hasn't he lost his voice yet?_

Things have to look upwards after this.

You are Hank Anderson.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

For a while; things do move upwards after this.

You grow; with little other option going for you. You age. Sometime later you have reached eighteen. _You didn't expect that._ Somehow, you become valedictorian.

You are Hank Anderson. at twenty five your father dies, and you do not remember to go to his funeral. Your sisters do not like this; but they do not pretend to not understand either. _You feel happiness._ You feel terrible for feeling happiness. _You stop feeling happiness over it._

You apply for a position at the DPD. Not exactly because it brings you the most joy, but because you do not think there is anything else you _could do._ There's nothing in particular you are good at. You are terrible at math, and at science. You have spent too many years doing things you hate to get a regular job.

In some abandoned timeline; eight year old you has gotten his wish.

You train; you live; you climb the ranks from beaten cop to something more. A drug bust here; A drug bust there. Eventually it feels like something tangible.

Eventually; the mistake you experienced twenty five years prior, _is solved._

You are Hank Anderson. Now everyone knows.

The world changes with you; technological achievements you can't believe exist. While you can appreciate how far the world has come, you find the creation of androids to be _far too damn creepy._

At forty-four; you become lieutenant; the youngest in Detroit, though it doesn't feel deserving of so much fanfare. And you meet someone.

Her name is Anne, three years younger than you, sleek, ebony hair, crystal eyes, riddled with freckles, a right leg shorter than the left one, and an infectious passion you're not sure you ever had.

She has frizzled hair that reminds you of someone forgotten. You meet her in the most cliche of places; a supermarket; you hate shopping, and all the socialization that came with it. She's not the first partner you ever had. You've dated, here and there, had flings when you were younger and cared more about these kind of things, but you've never known anything too serious.

 _Frankly,_ you figured you were past your prime for something serious. You didn't exactly mind.

You two don't exactly seem like the type to work on paper; she's lively, gunning to be the next picasso, and you... well, there's nothing to call what's left of home about. That's not meant to be an insult either. You are Hank Anderson. You are grumpy, mouthy, overworked, and the most artistic thing you have ever created was a string of insults traded with the newest detective on the force Gavin Reed.

She could find someone with a less jagged, jaded, personality with one of those new androids. And you know she knows this. But she chooses you. What you did to deserve her you do not know.

You are Hank Anderson. She is the only person you will ever think about proposing to.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You get home from a long, tiring, day at work. You kick off your shoes, you curse Jeffery Fowler for even giving you an investigation to pursue, to find Anne in the kitchen. Her features are as if something has climbed out of her. You don't know if she's upset, shocked, angry, or each of them. She clutches something in her fingers like if she lets go _it will kill her._

You are Hank Anderson. You are forty-seven when you find out you are set to be a father.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You do not know what to feel. You have come this far without any mention of children. You both figured each was past this. _You weren't trying._ Forty-seven...

The first thing you think about is your father. Him. You think about fatherhood, you think about fathers throughout the world. You think about Anne's father. You think about your father's smile. Anne's father's smile. Your smile.

You are not your father. For a moment you feel like you are. You feel like thinking about him as brought him out from the dead. The tides have washed his grave and dirt out. You are a rotting corpse. Stop it. You could scare Anne.

You are not him. Of course. You are Hank.

And then you feel like you could _cry._ You never do that.

You're scared. Of fucking course you are scared. There's something growing in your wife. Something _you made._ It is there because of you. Or he is. Or she is. Or they are. And you know you could never hurt whatever comes out of her. Not physically. Y _ou'd never do that._ You know you'd never do anything to hurt whatever is in there. You were a bit wild in your teen years but you never became an alcoholic. You never became one. You quit cigarettes at twenty after a scare. _You'_ _ve_ _done everything right so far._

You feel like a cliche. You don't really know _what you look like_ as a father. You are Hank. You are not _yours._

You didn't expect this. You weren't exactly waiting for this. You can't go back from this. No one can.

But you are not your father.

You are Hank Anderson.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You are there when he is born.

You get the call halfway through a grueling work day, stuck on an investigation you've almost forgotten the details of, from a half shouting Anne, telling you to meet her at the nearest hospital. _This baby is coming now._

Full house reruns are playing as you get into the room; doctors and nurses puttering around your screaming wife. You run towards her, breathless and wild with energy you didn't even know you _had anymore._ You stand somewhat uselessly to the side as the android doctor with an LED and a stoic expression gets between her legs trying to deliver. All you can hear is her screams, and the laugh track for a joke that wasn't even _funny._

It's 7:03 at night, there's snow falling outside that has the potential to become worse, when you become a father for the first time.

It's a boy. You name him _Cole._ Jeffrey is the godfather.

You never use the word. But he's the _most beautiful thing you have ever seen._

And he's... yours.

You are Hank. and he's yours.

You won't ruin this. Whatever he realizes, whatever he becomes, or is, _you won't ruin this._

You hope he won't ask for a hamster.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

For six years; you have him.

You're not sure each day what you did to deserve him. But you have him. _He never asks for a hamster._ He asks for a dog, barely able to get the word out at four. _You get a dog and name him Sumo._

You hate driving in the snow. It's impossible to see, it's rough, and all around _colder than balls._ If you were smart, you wouldn't be driving in this.

But in the backseat, there's a six year old who has you wrapped around his small little thumbs. And because he asked, _just once,_ you're taking him to the newest arcade in town. There's road closures, and barely anyone on the open ones.

And he's giggling. He's giggling back there because he _can._ You adjust your mirror to see him better, and you smile, because he's gotten his hands on a pirate hat; left in the car from last Halloween. And he only giggles more when he sees that you spotted him. The snow is only getting worse; he drops his hat onto the ground, making a soft gasp when he realizes what he's done.

You turn your eyes back onto the road. You blink. Something makes you realize the car i _s in the air._

It's the last you see him.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------  
You don't know how you're alright.

Well you aren't. But you don't know how _you're still alive._

The world is on fire; swarms of ash, red and blue lights and colors. God is dead and you think this is the end of time.

You're not sure what's happened, until they pull you from the wreckage of your _burning car._ They're moving so fast you don't even see their LEDS. All you have is a broken hand, and bleeding to your temple. _How_ is beyond you. But you aren't thinking of this. You're not thinking of the bullshit they've been programmed to spout. Or their concern for you. _You need to know where he is._

_Where your son is._

They each tell you the same thing, that he's being air lifted to the hospital, _because he wasn't as lucky as you,_ and needs to be there _now._  
\-------------------------------------------------------------

You forget to phone Anne until afterwards.

She'll hold that against you forever. You can't blame her.

You are Hank. Your son...

They force you to wait in a plastic chair that's too small for you. Fretting over you even though you shove each attempt at getting you to a hospital bed away. This _isn't about you._ You don't care about the bleeding on your temple, or your broken bones.

It takes them a full hour decide to stop the surgery. And to tell you.

You do not believe in God. It's all stupid to you. Too many negative factors for one to exist. But in this hour you pray through clouded, injured judgement.

God laughs in your face anyways. And a doctor - a human one, comes out from nowhere, a hand in your shoulder. Eyes red, splotchy, demeanor resigned, composed. Detached.

You've seen enough cops get shot to know this look. You didn't think you'd be the one getting it.

You come into this world in a snow storm, that's how you have to leave.

But you _aren't._ You aren't being told this. _The world can't be this fucking evil._ And so you start up a fuss; shout, yell, it's what you're good at. You stand up from the discomfort of hospital chairs and scream at them.

These are the facts as you know them. And as they are being presented to you.

Your car is totaled. You've had it since you were sixteen. You're bleeding from a gash in your temple. You have just survived a major car accident. At least you have good insurance. You forgot to phone your wife. _And your son is dead._

Your son. Is dead. _Why is everyone just standing here?_

Is it a joke? They should tell you. So you can punch them.

They tell you more facts. That the human surgeon meant to operate was found high on red ice in one of the storage closets. That, upon finding this out, one of the nurse android models, though _not allowed to perform surgery,_ tried to save Cole. Tried to save your son.

This android has been returned to Cyberlife for analyzing.

Logically; you know that if anyone should be blamed for all of this, it should be the human high on red ice. At least the android _had tried to do something._ Anything, cared more about the life of your child than the human did.

But you are Hank Anderson. And you know anger. Anger is easy. Anger and more anger.

And so you decide _this android has killed your son._ Because it's easy; because you always thought these things were creepy, and didn't exactly trust them. It's easy and the most available thing to blame. So you do. You do because your _son is dead._ What else are you supposed to do? To _feel?_

The dust settles. You call Anne and she screams senseless at you.

She serves you the divorce papers two months later. You do not see her again.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------

Years pass; you burn every bridge you have or get drunk underneath every one you see.

You are Hank. Or you used to be. You're not much of anything now.

Your son is dead. You do not know why you are not. It's not for a lack of trying.

You hang onto this; whatever it is - not very well, or with very much dignity. But you hang onto it like a bottle of whiskey.

Sometime later; you find out you are fifty-three. How you managed to get this far is beyond you. But you think you have seen enough.

Yet Jeffrey knows you. If he cared about his job, he would have fired you ages ago. You are defiant, drunk, and you barely show up to work anymore. _You should have been fired ages ago._

But he doesn't fire you. He can't or he won't but he doesn't. You think he's scared of it; scared of what the both of you know you'll do without a reason to get out of bed in the morning. What you're already on the edge of doing. You hate the looks you get when you show up; like everyone knows what's in your skin.

You don't think you'll live another week. Somehow you think he knows this, because he assigns you a case the both of you know you aren't qualified for.

You hate him for it. Why else would he give you a case involving androids? _Why else would he make you work with one?_

You are a horse with a broken leg. You do not know why he doesn't just let you take yourself out back. There has to be better lieutenants than you out there.

The android calls itself Connor; its face is goofy; serious and carefree all at once. It has chestnut hair and a strand that sticks out and blows with the wind and never gets resolved. You hate it for existing and you do not hide it. You hate it for what an android couldn't do. And yet it chooses to be patient with you.

It looks like him. Like Cole. What he could have grown to be. Brown hair and all. You hate it. You hate this. It reminds you of him. Of everything.

You didn't ask to be born; now your son is dead, you aren't, and now you have to work with the thing that killed your son.

It wasn't responsible. But you know what you mean.

You know it knows how you feel towards it. It even asks why you hate it. It's not stupid. _But it tries with you._ It tries even though you try and stop it from trying. _You try not to feel warmed by this._

But then it saves you. Saves your life. You nearly fall off a ledge and despite it needing to complete its mission it saves you regardless.

You want to ask it not to do it again; or even consider thanking i - him. What would you say?

 _You saved my life_ You think. _Why would you do that?_

You don't understand him. You think you understand what is happening. But you never bring it up. But you hope - you do not know why you do but you do.

You're not sure if you hate him anymore. Or if you ever did.

The world crashes and breaks through; a revolution outside of you for once. You don't do either. And he saves your life again.

You are Hank. You thank him this time.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me if you want my tumblr is @tenderconnor


End file.
